HSBC Holdings, Europe's largest bank by market value, will cut up to 25,000 jobs around the world to reduce costs and shift its center of gravity back toward the fast-growing Asian economies where it started operations 150 years ago.
The bank, which is currently based in london, said on Monday it is ‘undertaking a significant reshaping of its business portfolio’ and ‘redeploying resources to capture expected future growth opportunities."
Though it has not yet decided whether to move its headquarters, the bank's statement shows clearly where it thinks its commercial future lies - China and the Asia-Pacific region.
As well as having an already sizeable presence across Asia, HSBC has historic ties to the region. It was founded in Hong Kong in 1865 when the city was a UK colony in order to finance growing trade between China and Europe, much of it involving opium.